W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) is a radio interface for IMT-2000 (international Mobile Communication), which was standardized for use as the 3rd generation wireless mobile telecommunication system. It provides a variety of services such as voice services and multimedia mobile communication services in a flexible and efficient way. The standardization bodies in Japan, Europe, USA, and other countries have jointly organized a project called the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to produce common radio interface specifications for W-CDMA.
The standardized European version of IMT-2000 is commonly called UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System). The first release of the specification of UMTS has been published in 1999 (Release 99). In the mean time several improvements to the standard have been standardized by the 3GPP in Release 4 and Release 5 and discussion on further improvements is ongoing under the scope of Release 6.
The dedicated channel (DCH) for downlink and uplink and the downlink shared channel (DSCH) have been defined in Release 99 and Release 4. In the following years, the developers recognized that for providing multimedia services—or data services in general—high speed asymmetric access had to be implemented. In Release 5 the high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) was introduced. The new high-speed downlink shared channel (HS-DSCH) provides downlink high-speed access to the user from the UMTS Radio Access Network (RAN) to the communication terminals, called user equipments in the UMTS specifications.
Hybrid ARQ Schemes
The most common technique for error detection of non-real time services is based on Automatic Repeat request (ARQ) schemes, which are combined with Forward Error Correction (FEC), called Hybrid ARQ. If Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) detects an error, the receiver requests the transmitter to send additional bits or a new data packet. From different existing schemes the stop-and-wait (SAW) and selective-repeat (SR) continuous ARQ are most often used in mobile communication.
A data unit will be encoded before transmission. Depending on the bits that are retransmitted three different types of ARQ may be defined.
In HARQ Type I the erroneous data packets received, also called PDUs (Packet Data Unit) are discarded and new copy of that PDU is retransmitted and decoded separately. There is no combining of earlier and later versions of that PDU. Using HARQ Type II the erroneous PDU that needs to be retransmitted is not discarded, but is combined with some incremental redundancy bits provided by the transmitter for subsequent decoding. Retransmitted PDU sometimes have higher coding rates and are combined at the receiver with the stored values. That means that only little redundancy is added in each retransmission.
Finally, HARQ Type III is almost the same packet retransmission scheme as Type II and only differs in that every retransmitted PDU is self-decodable. This implies that the PDU is decodable without the combination with previous PDUs. In case some PDUs are heavily damaged such that almost no information is reusable self decodable packets can be advantageously used.
When employing chase-combining the retransmission packets carry identical symbols. In this case the multiple received packets are combined either by a symbol-by-symbol or by a bit-by-bit basis (see D. Chase: “Code combining: A maximum-likelihood decoding approach for combining an arbitrary number of noisy packets”, IEEE Transactions on Communications, Col. COM-33, pages 385 to 393, May 1985). These combined values are stored in the soft buffers of respective HARQ processes.
Packet Scheduling
Packet scheduling may be a radio resource management algorithm used for allocating transmission opportunities and transmission formats to the users admitted to a shared medium. Scheduling may be used in packet based mobile radio networks in combination with adaptive modulation and coding to maximize throughput/capacity by e.g. allocating transmission opportunities to the users in favorable channel conditions. The packet data service in UMTS may be applicable for the Interactive and background traffic classes, though it may also be used for streaming services. Traffic belonging to the interactive and background classes is treated as non real time (NRT) traffic and is controlled by the packet scheduler. The packet scheduling methodologies can be characterized by:                Scheduling period/frequency: The period over which users are scheduled ahead in time.        Serve order: The order in which users are served, e.g. random order (round robin) or according to channel quality (C/I or throughput based).        Allocation method: The criterion for allocating resources, e.g. same data amount or same power/code/time resources for all queued users per allocation interval.        
The packet scheduler for uplink is distributed between Radio Network Controller (RNC) and user equipment in 3GPP UMTS R99/R4/R5. On the uplink, the air interface resource to be shared by different users is the total received power at a Node B, and consequently the task of the scheduler is to allocate the power among the user equipment(s). In current UMTS R99/R4/R5 specifications the RNC controls the maximum rate/power a user equipment is allowed to transmit during uplink transmission by allocating a set of different transport formats (modulation scheme, code rate, etc.) to each user equipment.
The establishment and reconfiguration of such a TFCS (transport format combination set) may be accomplished using Radio Resource Control (RRC) messaging between RNC and user equipment. The user equipment is allowed to autonomously choose among the allocated transport format combinations based on its own status e.g. available power and buffer status. In current UMTS R99/R4/R5 specifications there is no control on time imposed on the uplink user equipment transmissions. The scheduler may e.g. operate on transmission time interval basis.
UMTS Architecture
The high level R99/4/5 architecture of Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) is shown in FIG. 1 (see 3GPP TR 25.401: “UTRAN Overall Description”, available from http://www.3gpp.org). The network elements are functionally grouped into the Core Network (CN) 101, the UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN) 102 and the User Equipment (UE) 103. The UTRAN 102 is responsible for handling all radio-related functionality, while the CN 101 is responsible for routing calls and data connections to external networks. The interconnections of these network elements are defined by open interfaces (lu, Uu). It should be noted that UMTS system is modular and It is therefore possible to have several network elements of the same type.
FIG. 2 illustrates the current architecture of UTRAN. A number of Radio Network Controllers (RNCs) 201, 202 are connected to the CN 101. Each RNC 201, 202 controls one or several base stations (Node Bs) 203, 204, 205, 206, which in turn communicate with the user equipments. An RNC controlling several base stations is called Controlling RNC (C-RNC) for these base stations. A set of controlled base stations accompanied by their C-RNC is referred to as Radio Network Subsystem (RNS) 207, 208. For each connection between User Equipment and the UTRAN, one RNS is the Serving RNS (S-RNS). It maintains the so-called lu connection with the Core Network (CN) 101. When required, the Drift RNS 302 (D-RNS) 302 supports the Serving RNS (S-RNS) 301 by providing radio resources as shown in FIG. 3. Respective RNCs are called Serving RNC (S-RNC) and Drift RNC (D-RNC). It is also possible and often the case that C-RNC and D-RNC are identical and therefore abbreviations S-RNC or RNC are used.
Enhanced Uplink Dedicated Channel (E-DCH)
Uplink enhancements for Dedicated Transport Channels (DTCH) are currently studied by the 3GPP Technical Specification Group RAN (see 3GPP TR 25.896: “Feasibility Study for Enhanced Uplink for UTRA FDD (Release 6)”, available at http://www.3gpp.org). Since the use of IP-based services become more important, there is an increasing demand to improve the coverage and throughput of the RAN as well as to reduce the delay of the uplink dedicated transport channels. Streaming, interactive and background services could benefit from this enhanced uplink.
One enhancement is the usage of adaptive modulation and coding schemes (AMC) in connection with Node B controlled scheduling, thus enhancements of the Uu interface. In the existing R99/R4/R5 system the uplink maximum data rate control resides in the RNC. By relocating the scheduler in the Node B the latency Introduced due to signaling on the interface between RNC and Node B may be reduced and thus the scheduler may be able to respond faster to temporal changes in the uplink load. This may reduce the overall latency in communications of the user equipment with the RAN. Therefore Node B controlled scheduling is capable of better controlling the uplink interference and smoothing the noise rise variance by allocating higher data rates quickly when the uplink load decreases and respectively by restricting the uplink data rates when the uplink load increases. The coverage and cell throughput may be improved by a better control of the uplink interference.
Another technique, which may be considered to reduce the delay on the uplink, is introducing a shorter TTI (Transmission Time Interval) length for the E-DCH compared to other transport channels. A transmission time interval length of 2 ms is currently investigated for use on the E-DCH, while a transmission time interval of 10 ms is commonly used on the other channels. Hybrid ARQ, which was one of the key technologies in HSDPA, is also considered for the enhanced uplink dedicated channel. The Hybrid ARQ protocol between a Node B and a user equipment allows for rapid retransmissions of erroneously received data units, and may thus reduce the number of RLC (Radio Link Control) retransmissions and the associated delays. This may improve the quality of service experienced by the end user.
To support enhancements described above, a new MAC sub-layer is introduced which will be called MAC-e in the following (see 3GPP TSG RAN WG1, meeting #31, Tdoc R01-030284, “Scheduled and Autonomous Mode Operation for the Enhanced Uplink”). The entities of this new sub-layer, which will be described In more detail in the following sections, may be located in user equipment and Node B. On user equipment side, the MAC-e performs the new task of multiplexing upper layer data (e.g. MAC-d) data into the new enhanced transport channels and operating HARQ protocol transmitting entitles.
Further, the MAC-e sub-layer may be terminated in the S-RNC during handover at the UTRAN side. Thus, the reordering buffer for the reordering functionality provided may also reside In the S-RNC.
E-DCH Mac Architecture at the User Equipment (UE)
FIG. 4 shows the exemplary overall E-DCH MAC architecture on user equipment side. A new MAC functional entity, the MAC-E 403, is added to the MAC architecture of ReV99/4/5. The MAC-e 405 entity is depicted in more detail In FIG. 5.
There are M different data flows (MAC-d) carrying data packets from different applications to be transmitted from UE to Node B. These data flows can have different QoS requirements (e.g. delay and error requirements) and may require different configuration of HARQ instances.
Each MAC-d flow will represent a logical unit to which specific physical channel (e.g. gain factor) and HARQ attributes (e.g. maximum number of retransmissions) can be assigned. Since MAC-d multiplexing is supported for E-DCH, several logical channels with different priorities can be multiplexed onto the same MAC-d. Therefore the data from one MAC-d flow can be fed into different Priority Queues.
The selection of an appropriate transport format for the transmission of data on E-DCH is done in the TF Selection functional entity. The transport format selection is based on the available transmit power, priorities, e.g. logical channel priorities, and associated control signaling (HARQ and scheduling related control signaling) received from Node B. The HARQ entity handles the retransmission functionality for the user. One HARQ entity supports multiple HARQ processes. The HARQ entity handles all HARQ related functionalities required. The MAC-e entity receives scheduling information from Node B (network side) via L1 signaling as shown in FIG. 5.
E-DCH MAC Architecture at the UTRAN
In soft handover operation the MAC-e entities in the E-DCH MAC Architecture at the UTRAN side may be distributed across Node B (MAC-eb) and S-RNC (MAC-es). The scheduler in Node B chooses the active users and performs rate control by determining and signaling a commanded rate, suggested rate or TFC (Transport Format Combination) threshold that limits the active user (UE) to a subset of the TCFS (Transport Format Combination Set) allowed for transmission.
Every MAC-e entity corresponds to a user (UE). In FIG. 6 the Node B MAC-e architecture is depicted in more detail. It can be noted that each HARQ Receiver entity is assigned certain amount or area of the soft buffer memory for combining the bits of the packets from outstanding retransmissions. Once a packet is received successfully, it is forwarded to the reordering buffer providing the in-sequence delivery to upper layer. According to the depicted implementation, the reordering buffer resides in S-RNC during soft handover (see 3GPP TSG RAN WG 1, meeting #31: “HARQ Structure”, Tdoc R1-030247, available of http://www.3gpp.org). In FIG. 7 the S-RNC MAC-e architecture which comprises the reordering buffer of the corresponding user (UE) is shown. The number of reordering buffers is equal to the number of data flows In the corresponding MAC-E entity on user equipment side. Data and control information is sent from all Node Bs within Active Set to S-RNC during soft handover.
It should be noted that the required soft buffer size depends on the used HARQ scheme, e.g. an HARQ scheme using incremental redundancy (IR) requires more soft buffer than one with chase combining (CC).
E-DCH Signaling
E-DCH associated control signaling required for the operation of a particular scheme consists of uplink and downlink signaling. The signaling depends on uplink enhancements being considered.
In order to enable Node B controlled scheduling (e.g. Node B controlled time and rate scheduling), user equipment has to send some request message on the uplink for transmitting data to the Node B. The request message may contain status information of a user equipment e.g. buffer status, power status, channel quality estimate. The request message is In the following referred to as Scheduling Information (SI). Based on this information a Node B can estimate the noise rise and schedule the UE. With a grant message sent in the downlink from the Node B to the UE, the Node B assigns the UE the TFCS with maximum data rate and the time interval, the UE is allowed to send. The grant message is in the following referred to as Scheduling Assignment (SA).
In the uplink user equipment has to signal Node B with a rate indicator message information that is necessary to decode the transmitted packets correctly, e.g. transport block size (TBS), modulation and coding scheme (MCS) level, etc. Furthermore, in case HARQ is used, the user equipment has to signal HARQ related control Information (e.g. Hybrid ARQ process number, HARQ sequence number referred to as New Data Indicator (NDI) for UMTS Rel. 5, Redundancy version (RV), Rate matching parameters etc.)
After reception and decoding of transmitted packets on enhanced uplink dedicated channel (E-DCH) the Node B has to inform the user equipment if transmission was successful by respectively sending ACK/NAK in the downlink.
Mobility Management within Rel99/4/5 UTRAN
Before explaining some procedures connected to mobility management, some terms frequently used in the following are defined first.
A radio link may be defined as a logical association between single UE and a single UTRAN access point. Its physical realization comprises radio bearer transmissions.
A handover may be understood as a transfer of a UE connection from one radio bearer to another (hard handover) with a temporary break in connection or Inclusion/exclusion of a radio bearer to/from UE connection so that UE is constantly connected UTRAN (soft handover). Soft handover is specific for networks employing Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology. Handover execution may controlled by S-RNC in the mobile radio network when taking the present UTRAN architecture as an example.
The active set associated to a UE comprises a set of radio links simultaneously involved In a specific communication service between UE and radio network. An active set update procedure may be employed to modify the active set of the communication between UE and UTRAN. The procedure may comprise three functions: radio link addition, radio link removal and combined radio link addition and removal. It should be noted that based on active set the set of Node Bs the UE is currently communicating with is identified.
The maximum number of simultaneous radio links is set to eight. New radio links are added to the active set once the pilot signal strengths of respective base stations exceed certain threshold relative to the pilot signal of the strongest member within active set.
A radio link is removed from the active set once the pilot signal strength of the respective base station exceeds certain threshold relative to the strongest member of the active set. Threshold for radio link addition is typically chosen to be higher than that for the radio link deletion. Hence, addition and removal events form a hysteresis with respect to pilot signal strengths.
Pilot signal measurements may be reported to the network (e.g. to S-RNC) from UE by means of RRC signaling. Before sending measurement results, some filtering is usually performed to average out the fast fading. Typical filtering duration may be about 200 ms contributing to handover delay. Based on measurement results, the network (e.g. S-RNC) may decide to trigger the execution of one of the functions of active set update procedure (addition/removal of a Node B to/from current Active Set).
E-DCH—Node B Controlled Scheduling
Node B controlled scheduling is one of the technical features for E-DCH which is foreseen to enable more efficient use of the uplink power resource In order to provide a higher cell throughput in the uplink and to increase the coverage. The term “Node B controlled scheduling” denotes the possibility for the Node B to control, within the limits set by the RNC, the set of TFCs from which the UE may choose a suitable TFC. The set of TFCs from which the UE may choose autonomously a TFC is in the following referred to as “Node B controlled TFC subset”.
The “Node B controlled TFC subset” is a subset of the TFCS configured by RNC as seen in FIG. 8. The UE selects a suitable TFC from the “Node B controlled TFC subset” employing the Rel5 TFC selection algorithm. Any TFC in the “Node B controlled TFC subset” might be selected by the UE, provided there is sufficient power margin, sufficient data available and TFC is not in the blocked state. Two fundamental approaches to scheduling UE transmission for the E-DCH exist. The scheduling schemes can all be viewed as management of the TFC selection in the UE and mainly differs in how the Node B can Influence this process and the associated signaling requirements.
Node B controlled Rate Scheduling
The principle of this scheduling approach is to allow Node B to control and restrict the transport format combination selection of the user equipment by fast TFCS restriction control. A Node B may expand/reduce the “Node B controlled subset”, which user equipment can choose autonomously on suitable transport format combination from, by Layer-1 signaling. In Node B controlled rate scheduling all uplink transmissions may occur in parallel but at a rate low enough such that the noise rise threshold at the Node B is not exceeded. Hence, transmissions from different user equipments may overlap in time. With Rate scheduling a Node B can only restrict the uplink TFCS but does not have any control of the time when UEs are transmitting data on the E-DCH. Due to Node B being unaware of the number of UEs transmitting at the same time no precise control of the uplink noise rise in the cell may be possible (see 3GPP TR 25.896: “Feasibility study for Enhanced Uplink for UTRA FDD (Release 6)”, version 1.0.0, available at http://www.3gpp.org). Two new Layer-1 messages are introduced in order to enable the transport format combination control by Layer-1 signaling between the Node B and the user equipment. A Rate Request (RR) may be sent in the uplink by the user equipment to the Node B. With the RR the user equipment can request the Node B to expand/reduce the “Node controlled TFC Subset” by one step. Further, a Rate Grant (RG) may be sent in the downlink by the Node B to the user equipment. Using the RG, the Node B may change the “Node B controlled TFC Subset”, e.g. by sending up/down commands. The new “Node B controlled TFC Subset” is valid until the next time it is updated.
Node B Controlled Rate and Time Scheduling
The basic principle of Node B controlled time and rate scheduling is to allow (theoretically only) a subset of the user equipments to transmit at a given time, such that the desired total noise rise at the Node B is not exceeded. Instead of sending up/down commands to expand/reduce the “Node B controlled TFC Subset” by one step, a Node B may update the transport format combination subset to any allowed value through explicit signaling, e.g. by sending a TFCS indicator (which could be a pointer).
Furthermore, a Node B may set the start time and the validity period a user equipment is allowed to transmit. Updates of the “Node B controlled TFC Subsets” for different user equipments may be coordinated by the scheduler in order to avoid transmissions from multiple user equipments overlapping in time to the extent possible. In the uplink of CDMA systems, simultaneous transmissions always interfere with each other. Therefore by controlling the number of user equipments, transmitting simultaneously data on the E-DCH, Node B may have more precise control of the uplink interference level in the cell. The Node B scheduler may decide which user equipments are allowed to transmit and the corresponding TFCS indicator on a per transmission time interval (TTI) basis based on, for example, buffer status of the user equipment, power status of the user equipment and available interference Rise over Thermal (RoT) margin at the Node B.
Two new Layer-1 messages are introduced in order to support Node B controlled time and rate scheduling. A Scheduling Information Update (SI) may be sent in the uplink by the user equipment to the Node B. If user equipment finds a need for sending scheduling request to Node B (for example new data occurs in user equipment buffer), a user equipment may transmit required scheduling information. With this scheduling information the user equipment provides Node B Information on its status, for example its buffer occupancy and available transmit power.
A Scheduling assignment (SA) may be transmitted in the downlink from a Node B to a user equipment. Upon receiving the scheduling request the Node B may schedule a user equipment based on the scheduling information (SI) and parameters like available RoT margin at the Node B. In the Scheduling Assignment (SA) the Node B may signal the TFCS Indicator and subsequent transmission start time and validity period to be used by the user equipment.
Node B controlled time and rate scheduling provides a more precise RoT control compared to the rate-only controlled scheduling as already mentioned before. However this more precise control of the interference at this Node B is obtained at the cost of more signaling overhead and scheduling delay (scheduling request and scheduling assignment messages) compared to rate control scheduling.
In FIG. 10 a general scheduling procedure with Node B controlled time and rate scheduling is shown. When a user equipment wants to be scheduled for transmission of data on E-DCH it first sends a scheduling request to Node B. Tprop denotes here the propagation time on the air interface. The contents of this scheduling request are Information (scheduling information) for example buffer status and power status of the user equipment. Upon receiving that scheduling request, the Node B may process the obtained Information and determine the scheduling assignment. The scheduling will require the processing time Tschedule.
The scheduling assignment, which comprises the TFCS Indicator and the corresponding transmission start time and validity period, may be then transmitted in the downlink to the user equipment. After receiving the scheduling assignment the user equipment will start transmission on E-DCH in the assigned transmission time interval.
The use of either rate scheduling or time and rate scheduling may be restricted by the available power as the E-DCH will have to co-exist with a mix of other transmissions by the user equipments in the uplink. The co-existence of the different scheduling modes may provide flexibility in serving different traffic types. For example, traffic with small amount of data and/or higher priority such as TCP ACK/NACK may be sent using only a rate control mode with autonomous transmissions compared to using time and rate-control scheduling. The former would involve lower latency and lower signaling overhead.
Transport Channels and TFC Selection
In third generation mobile communication systems data generated at higher layers is carried over the air with transport channels, which are mapped to different physical channels in the physical layer. Transport channels are the services, which are offered by the physical layer to Medium Access Control (MAC) layer for information transfer. The transport channels are primarily divided into two types:                Common transport channels, where there is a need for explicit identification of the receiving UE, if the data on the transport channel is Intended for a specific UE or a sub-set of all UEs (no UE identification is needed for broadcast transport channels)        Dedicated transport channels, where the receiving UE is implicitly given by the physical channel, that carries the transport channel        
One example for a dedicated transport channel is the E-DCH. The data is transmitted within the transport channels during periodic Intervals, commonly referred to as transmission time Interval (TTI). A transport block is the basic data unit exchanged over transport channels, i.e. between the physical layer and MAC layer. Transport blocks arrive to or are delivered by the physical layer once every TTI. The transport format (TF) describes how data is transmitted during a TTI on a transport channel.
The transport format consists of two parts. The semi-static part indicating the Transmission Time Interval (TTI) (e.g. 10 ms, 20 ms, 40 ms, 80 ms), the Type of FEC (Forward Error Correction) coding (e.g. convolutional, turbo, none), the Channel Coding-rate (e.g. ½, ⅓) and the CRC size. The second part, the dynamic part indicates the Number of transport blocks per TTI, and Number of bits per transport blocks.
The attributes of the dynamic part may vary for every TTI, whereas the attributes of the semi-static part are changed by RRC transport channel reconfiguration procedure. For each transport channel a set of transport formats are defined, the so-called Transport Format Set (TFS). The TFS is assigned to MAC layer from RRC at transport channel set up. An uplink or downlink connection typically consists of more than one transport channel. The combination of transport formats of all transport channels is known as the Transport Format Combination (TFC). At the start of each TTI, an appropriate TFC for all the transport channels is selected. Dependent on the number of transport channels, the TFC comprises a number of TFs, which define the transport format to be used for transmitting data of the respective transport channel within a TTI.
The MAC layer selects the transport format for each transport channel on the basis of a set of transport format combinations (or TFCS for transport format combination set) assigned by RRC radio resource control unit and also selects the quantity of data of each logical channel to be transmitted on the associated transport channel during the corresponding TTI. This procedure is referred to as “TFC (Transport Format Combination) selection”. For details on the UMTS TFC selection procedure see 3GPP TS 25.321, “Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol specification; (Release 6)”, version 6.1.0, available at http://www.3gpp.org.
TFC selection at the UE may be carried out at the start of each reference TTI, which denotes the smallest TTI of the involved transport channels. If for example TFC selection is performed among three transport channels with a TTI length of transport channel #1 equals 10 ms and a TTI length of equal to 40 ms for transport channels #2 an #3, TFC selection is performed every 10 ms.
QoS Classes and Attributes
The nature of the information to be transmitted has a strong influence on the way this information should be transmitted. For instance, a voice call has completely different characteristics than a browsing session (internet). In 3GPP TS 23.107:“Quality of Service (QoS) concept and architecture”, V6.1.0 (available at http://www.3gpp.org) the different types of information expected to be commonly transmitted over 3G are presented. In general, applications and services can be divided Into different groups, depending on how they are considered. UMTS attempts to fulfill QoS requests from the application or the user. Four different classes of services have been identified in UMTS and the following table lists their respective characteristics and foreseen applications.
ConversationalStreamingInteractiveBackgroundclassclassclassclassFundamentalPreservePreserveRequestDestinationcharacteristicstimetimeresponseis notrelationrelationpatternexpecting(variation)(variation)Preservethe databetweenbetweenpayloadwithin ainformationinformationcontentcertainentities ofentities oftimethe streamthe streamPreserveConversationalpayloadpatterncontent(stringent andlow delay)Example of thevoicestreamingWebbackgroundapplicationvideobrowsingdownload ofemails
Apparently the Conversational class-type and the Streaming class-type traffic may have real-time constraints given, while the other classes are less or not delay critical and are for example commonly used for (interactive) best effort services or so-called background traffic.
For each of these QoS classes or bearer traffic classes, a list of QoS attributes has been defined as shown in the following table. If the QoS attributes are met, it is ensured that the message is perceived by the end user with the required quality. The QoS attributes are negotiated between the different elements of the communication chain (UE, RNC, CN elements) during the setup of a connection and depend on the type of service requested and the capabilities of the different nodes. If one of the QoS attributes is not met, the end user will certainly remark a degradation of the communication (e.g. voice deformation, connection blank, etc).
ConversationalStreamingInteractiveBackgroundclassclassclassclassMaximum bitrateXXXXDelivery orderXXXXMaximum SDUXXXXsizeSDU formatXXInformationSDU error ratioXXXXResidual bitXXXXerror ratioDelivery ofXXXXerroneous SDUsTransfer delayXXGuaranteed bitXXrateTraffic handlingXpriorityAllocation/XXXXRetentionprioritySourceXXstatisticsdescriptorSignalingXIndication
A definition of each of these QoS attributes can be found in 3GPP TS 23.107 and is omitted herein for brevity.
During Radio Access Bearer (RAB) assignment procedure the RNC receives the parameters of the RAB to be established and in particular its QoS attributes. The CN initiates the procedure by sending a RAB ASSIGNMENT REQUEST message to the RNC. The message contains the IE “RAB Parameters”, which includes all necessary parameters for RABs including QoS attributes. Upon reception of the RAB ASSIGNMENT REQUEST message, the UTRAN executes the requested RAB configuration. The CN may indicate that RAB QoS negotiation is allowed for certain RAB parameters and in some cases also which alternative values to be used in the negotiation.
The general idea behind the RAB QoS negotiation is to provide a solution in case a user is asking for a service with specified QoS requirements, but for some reasons (e.g. resources are not available) the system cannot meet the requirements precisely. In such situation a negotiation of certain RAB parameters (QoS attributes) like guaranteed bitrate or maximum bitrate is allowed by the CN in order to provide the user at least a connection with compromised QoS parameters instead of leaving the user without service.
As described before the scheduler in Node B shares the allowable uplink resources (RoT) among the users for uplink data transmission in the cell under its control. The scheduler allocates uplink resources to UEs requesting to transmit data on the uplink. During normal operation requests for uplink resources are received from various mobiles in the cell. Node B schedules the mobiles for uplink data transmission such that a higher cell throughput in the uplink and larger coverage for higher uplink data rates is achieved.
Node B allocates each UE a certain amount of uplink resources, i.e. maximum allowed TFC or maximum power, based on uplink scheduling requests sent from the UEs. These scheduling requests may for example contain information on the amount of data to be transmitted or the available transmit power. The Node B takes this information into account when scheduling. Further, the Node B may for example schedule a UE which is capable of higher throughput instead of another UE whose channel or available transmit power does not support higher throughput.
The problem which arises when only considering the maximum data rate each mobile can support is, that the Quality of Service (QoS) required by each mobile cannot be guaranteed. Although this kind of scheduling approach may require less amount of signaling for the uplink scheduling request, it does not consider any relative priorities between different services and therefore each radio bearer mapped to the E-DCH would have the same priority in the Node B scheduler.
Another problem occurs in case there are multiple services with different QoS requirements mapped to the E-DCH in one UE. When Node B receives a scheduling request from a UE with multiple radio bearers mapped to E-DCH, it is not aware for which bearer the resources are requested. Also In this case the Node B has no information on the probably significantly differing QoS for the service transported by the priority flows.
In an exemplary scenario outlining these problems, the Node B scheduler may receive scheduling requests (rate up command) from UE A and UE B. UE A has one interactive and one background RAB allocated and mapped to the E-DCH, whereas UE B has only one background application running on E-DCH. In case UE A requests more resources for the transmission of data of the interactive service it should be prioritized compared to UE B when performing scheduling due to the more stringent QoS requirements for the interactive service. However In case UE does not indicate within the scheduling request the application, the resources are requested for, Node B cannot differentiate between the 2 received scheduling requests and therefore can also not consider the QoS requirements for the different applications.